Indigenous History and Renaming Project

Indigenous Renaming and History Project

The indigenous renaming and history project partners with local tribes and historian organizations for the creation of an open source database of indigenous names and history, pushes for the addition of traditional place names and historical documentation for, and to create space, raise awareness and educate about our regions unique cultural heritage.

It will partner with and learn from already existing programs in King County, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, and those as far away as Gaelic heritage organizations in Ireland and Scotland to help re-introduce first nation history, language and culture to the fifteen million inhabitants of our region. This project follows a movement to not just for places in their traditional territory to be given aboriginal names, but rather for traditional names and the historical significance of the places to their people be documented to help preserve and celebrate the unique heritage of Cascadia.

This program follows efforts such as Haida Gwaii, the renaming of Columbus Day to indigenous People’s Day in Seattle, the Salish Sea between Washington and British Columbia, and an unprecedented cooperation and communication among first nations people across the Pacific Northwest.

This project is part of a larger movement to help keep first nations languages and culture alive, and follows efforts in Denali, and the renaming of dozens of other places, land areas and even park trails across the Northwest. In British Columbia alone, 32 living native languages in B.C., 22 were “critically endangered” and eight were nearly extinct. The goal of IRHP would be to partner with tribes to compile an open source database of languages, place names, and historical significance of major tourist destinations so that native languages can be evident in all aspects of daily life, not only used in native-language classrooms.